After these funeral ceremonies had been performed, the Senate was convened, and Nero appeared before them to make his inaugural address. This address also, was of course prepared for him by Seneca, under directions from Agrippina, who, after revolving the subject fully in her mind, had determined what it would be most politic to say. She knew very well that until the power of her son became consolidated and settled, it became him to be modest in his pretensions and claims, and to profess great deference and respect for the powers and prerogatives of the Senate. In the speech, therefore, which Nero delivered in the senate-chamber, he said that in assuming the imperial dignity, which he had consented to do in obedience to the will of his father the late emperor, to the general voice of the army, and the universal suffrages of the people, he did not intend to usurp the civil powers of the state, but to leave to the Senate, and to the various civil functionaries of the city, their rightful and proper jurisdiction. He considered himself as merely the commander-in-chief of the armies of the commonwealth, and as such, his duty would be simply to execute the national will. He promised, moreover, a great variety of reforms in the administration, all tending to diminish the authority of the prince, and to protect the people from danger of oppression by military power. In a word, it was his settled purpose, he said, to restore the government to its pristine simplicity and purity, and to administer it in strict accordance with the true principles of the Roman Constitution, as originally established by the founders of the commonwealth. The professions and promises which Nero thus made to the Senate, or rather which he recited to them at the dictation of his mother and of Seneca, gave great satisfaction to all who heard them. All opposition to the claims which he advanced, disappeared, and the heart of Agrippina was filled with gladness and joy at finding that all her plans had been so fully and successfully realized.